Eating breakfast was found to trigger so-called "clock genes" that lead to improved glycaemic control. Simply put, that means breakfast makes your body better at regulating glucose and insulin — two things which can have dire consequences when their function is disrupted.

"In both healthy individuals and in diabetics, breakfast consumption acutely improved the expression of specific clock genes linked to more efficient weight loss, and was associated with improved glucose and insulin levels after lunch," said Daniela Jakubowicz, Tel Aviv University professor and lead author of the study, in a statement.

"Proper meal timing — such as consuming breakfast before 9:30am — could lead to an improvement of the entire metabolism of the body, facilitate weight loss, and delay complications associated with type 2 diabetes and other age-related disorders."

In addition to improving glucose metabolism, breakfast is also likely to improve fat metabolism — that is, the way fat is transported and broken down in the blood, and used in cells.

A study published in the Journal of Physiology in November found that breakfast decreases the activity of genes involved in fat metabolism and increases how much sugar fat cells take up, which could lower diabetes and cardiovascular disease risk.

"By better understanding how fat responds to what and when we eat, we can more precisely target those mechanisms," concluded the study's lead author Javier Gonzalez, a University of Bath physiologist, in a statement.

"We may be able to uncover new ways to prevent the negative consequences of having a large amount of body fat, even if we cannot get rid of it."

How eating breakfast helps with weight loss

Jakubowicz was also the author of a 2012 study suggesting that loading up on dessert-style foods early in the day is a path to weight loss — leading to the slew of "chocolate cake for breakfast burns fat!"-style headlines that still circulate on social media.